PASO still helping patients battle AIDS

And every woman and child, too, said Michael Timcisko, executive director for the Panhandle AIDS Support Organization, which provides services to people in the city and throughout the 26 counties of the Texas Panhandle who are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, or who have a diagnosis of AIDS.

"AIDS wears all faces, all religions, all colors, all genders. AIDS carries a human face, the face of every human," he said. "AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease, and if you're sexually active, you're at risk."

And so are the children of people with AIDS.

Timcisko, who took over the executive director's position at PASO in May, said the social services agency has no typical client.

"Our clients run the gamut of human society, of the human race. We have poor people, we have wealthy people, we have people with addiction problems, your regular Joe Sixpack off the street. We have children, we have elderly. There is no precise demographic that we serve."

Timcisko said the agency works with nearly 200 people with HIV or AIDS itself, and that the ages of the infected range from 2 to 72.

"That's always kind of a startling thing for people to hear," he said.

At A Glance

Who: Panhandle AIDS Support Organization

What: Turnabout 2002

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Eagle Center, Eighth Avenue and Tyler Street

Details: Admission fee. For reservations, call 372-1050, Ext. 139.

That's because the general population still has a tendency to think of AIDS as a disease that infects gay men.

"But when you're looking at sexuality, it is pretty much 50/50 at this point in time," Timcisko said. "Most of the clients that have recently come into our organization are heterosexual, although we are seeing an increase in the rate of infection of young gay men."

He said he thinks the increase in clients from the young homosexual population comes from their thinking, "If I end up with it, there are those medications that will stop it, so I really don't have to worry."

"When you look at the older gay population, people older than 25, you see more responsible behavior," he said. "And it's our behaviors that put us and the people we love at risk."

The agency and its case managers are aware of the stereotype, and Timcisko said educators need to focus on getting the word out about other populations affected by the disease.

"In our country, it initially infected certain population groups and became labeled a disease of gay men, drug users, sex workers. But that's only because it affected those populations first," he said. "In the rest of the world, it affected the other populations - heterosexuals - first."

The rate of AIDS infection in the United States had been leveling off for a few years, Timcisko said, but now has begun to go up again.

"It's a worldwide epidemic. And we're lucky in this country to have the medications we have available to us. That's not the case in Africa, Asia or India, which are seeing huge jumps in the infected population. Right now, the estimates that are coming out about China are really staggering."

Timcisko blamed misconceptions about AIDS medications for some of the increase in HIV and AIDS.

"The drugs that are available to us are very effective for many people, and new drugs have enabled many people to resume their lives, resume working," he said. "A diagnosis is not necessarily a death sentence for a lot of people anymore, but there are still many people who do not respond to the drugs and go on to develop full-blown AIDS and die from the disease.

"We do not have a cure. It has not even been listed as a manageable chronic illness to date. There is a belief of many people that it is manageable and chronic, but it has not been listed that way as of yet.

"For many it can still be fatal."

He also blamed "AIDS Apathy."

"Many people are tired of talking about it, tired of worrying about it, so they're letting their guards down again."

PASO, located at 16th Avenue and Taylor Street, doesn't provide services to all the infected people in Amarillo and the Panhandle, Timcisko said. Some people choose to manage their illness on their own, not just because they have the financial resources but also because they are comfortable and capable of addressing their illness on their own.

Funded through the Texas Department of Health and some federal programs, PASO relies on private donations to take up the slack when it doesn't have enough funding to cover services.

The agency collaborates with Planned Parenthood of Amarillo and is part of the Amarillo Area HIV/AIDS Resource Center.

"Planned Parenthood is a TDH-funded provider of testing and counseling services," Timcisko said. "If someone does test positive for HIV or AIDS, he or she can go into the room next door and meet a case manager for our agency."

Timcisko sees himself as the public spokesman for PASO, the one who advocates for the agency's clients.

The agency is stronger than it has been in years, having settled a debt incurred through a dishonest employee, he said.

"I kind of came in at a good time," he said. "We were operating in the black after a lot of hard work by the board of directors and past director Sara Northrup. She had done a good job of turning the organization around."